Rabbit holes
This thing has just popped up in my Facebook feed, so you may well have seen it. It’s a photo essay of a cave underneath a Shropshire field that was used as a place of worship by the Knights Templar. It’s a cool story: you squeeze in through a hole not much bigger than a rabbit hole, and there’s this 700-year-old maze of twisty passages carved out of the rock.
Bonus: if you follow this link in the Independent and you’re lucky in the ad rotation, you’ll get to see an animated version of the Lloyd’s ad I posted about yesterday. You know, the interracial gay wedding proposal one.
ANYway, the reason this story has popped up now (not immediately apparent unless you dig around) is that someone has been let in to take photos. Actually, the caves have been known about since forever (I guess, I couldn’t find a date) but they’ve been sealed since 2012.
The owners (it’s on private land) tried to accommodate everyone who wanted to go in, from pagans to satanists to the merely curious, and so, naturally, the graffiti, vandalism and garbage leaving got out of hand. Put up gates, gates torn down, so they sealed the whole thing. With earth, I guess.
One of the links I followed from Facebook promised video. Then I realized I was visiting the dang old Knights Templar themselves!
An organization calling themselves that, anyway. And very peculiar it is, too. The site is full of typos and grammar-os. The graphics look borrowed from video games. Their FAQ takes pain to describe the organization as non-political, not racist and welcoming to women. So, naturally, it appears to be ultra right wing, anti-feminist and all about the cultural defense of Western Christian civilization. Its centered in Brussels, of all places.
Cultural push-back. We’re going to see a lot of this.
Posted: March 8th, 2017 under britain, news.
Comments: 13
Comments
Comment from xul’s fedora
Time: March 8, 2017, 10:13 pm
Hi Stoaty! I am pleased to report that my Dead Pool winnings arrived in the post today! Huzzah! At first I thought it was something from a friend of mine in Canada what with the postage with a pic of Her Maj on it and the fact that your handwriting is eerily similar. But the weasel stamp on the back proved otherwise. 🙂
It’s a very good likeness of Yogi Berra. Thank you very much!
-xul
Comment from durnedyankee
Time: March 8, 2017, 10:19 pm
Do the K-nig-hits Templar links give away the secret handshakes and such that allow you to be pulled through your video monitor into the universe of Assassin’s Creed?
Dying (pretty sure) to understand the physics that allow you to leap from a 10 story building headfirst into a pile of straw and still spring to your feet and maim and dismember whatever evil doers are lurking around in the vicinity of said straw pile.
Comment from Deborah HH
Time: March 8, 2017, 11:43 pm
Can you imagine discovering caves like these on your land?
(Now I must go read Ivanhoe again.)
Comment from Ric Fan
Time: March 9, 2017, 12:37 am
I cant imagine squeezing into a hole in the ground. I’ve seen too many movies where there is a down pour and the cave fills up with water. shudder!
Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: March 9, 2017, 3:51 am
The Freemasons claim to be the modern revival or survival of the Templars. My cousin was a Mason, and his wife was a member of the “De Molay Wives” auxiliary. One Christmas, she gave everyone cheese balls that had been made by the DMW. I had a little fun pointing out that the group was named in commemoration of a man who was burned at the stake for heresy, blasphemy, sorcery, and sodomy. (And having a lot of money the King of France wanted…)
Comment from Ric Fan
Time: March 9, 2017, 3:56 am
Yeah, but they got to wear chain mail with a white tunic and a big red cross on the front and carry swords. Very sexy for the times. 🙂
Comment from Bob B
Time: March 9, 2017, 4:26 am
“There’s an alternate dimension in that rabbit hole.”
(paraphrased from Jumanji)
Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: March 9, 2017, 11:15 am
I can’t see it without hearing Grace Slick.
Comment from Drew458
Time: March 9, 2017, 9:14 pm
Like Xul, I also got a dead pool prize in the post today. Let’s see, last time I won the DP was for Joan Rivers, September 2014. So only 2 1/2 years late, but woo hoo anyway!!
I’m going to finish lunch and wash my hands before breaking the Official Weasel Seal and seeing what’s inside.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 9, 2017, 10:30 pm
Sigh. I know. I didn’t realize how far behind I’d gotten with muh dicks. I pedalling furiously to catch up now.
I’m lousy with likenesses, xul, so I don’t usually try. It’s sad — I would really like to have been a portrait painter. But him, I figured I’d give it a try.
Comment from tomfrompv
Time: March 10, 2017, 12:30 am
That story was great! In Calif, if somebody found 700 year old caves in their yard, the govt would seize your property. And turn it into a national monument. Then a whole bunch of over-fed well-tanned people would claim it belonged to their native ancestors (the REAL Americans). You know, guys with pigtails, women with hand-made clothes, all playing flutes and very odorific.
Eventually, the whole place would be a tourist attraction, with a hotel and cheapo casino too.
But in England, the owner closes it up and the govt leaves him alone. Thats nice.
Comment from Drew458
Time: March 10, 2017, 4:12 pm
I think the crow vs raven drawing you sent is wonderful. Gonna frame it an hang it on the wall. I liked the long-butt lion you sent me the last time too, but this one is much better.
It’s art!!
Comment from Niña
Time: March 10, 2017, 5:26 pm
One day, hopefully before I die, I will win a Dick. 😜
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